DataSmogon Usage-Based Tier Update: November 2016

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Thanks for your patience, everybody. Been a HARD last week, but I'm finally able to post what will likely be the last tier shift of Gen VI.

My plan is not to do any more quick-rises / drops, but I can of course be persuaded otherwise by TLs, if they feel they're necessary.

Boilerplate:

For those new to our system, how our tiers work is that they're primarily based on usage (the names of the tiers, OU, UU, RU and NU, literally mean "Overused," "Underused," "Rarely Used" and "Never Used"): Pokemon that are used heavily in the tier above get banned from the tiers below. PU is a pun--in English, "Pee Ew" is something you say when something stinks, like the Pokemon in the lowest tier do.

Finally, for those who are familiar with how we calculate usage stats now, we weight our stats based on player skill rating, and we're calculating stats using a baseline of 1695 for OU and 1630 for UU, RU and NU. To eliminate some numerical anomalies, we're also throwing out teams where the player's RD is greater than 100 (meaning they've had less than ~5 battles under their alt). This decision is detailed in this thread.

On top of the usage-based tiers we also have "borderline" or "BL" tiers, which are essentially Ubers banlists for the lower tiers. These lists ban Pokemon that aren't used enough in the higher tiers but are too overpowered for the lower ones. BL banlists are not subject to usage stats, except a BL Pokemon can, of course, move into a higher tier (from BL to OU, from BL2 to UU).

Also note that a Pokemon cannot drop more than one tier per update cycle. Say no one used Charizard in OU for the next three months. That would drop it down to UU, even though it had no usage in UU for that period (how could it? It was OU).

Finally, since December 2015, mega formes are counted separately from their base formes.

Further notes: suspect tests were included in the rankings wherever possible, with weight for that given tier and month being split proportional to the number of battles on each ladder. Example: say there were 10,000 OU battles in September vs. 5,000 OU Suspect battles. Then June's OU ladder would contribute 2/24 to the tiering and September's OU Suspect ladder would contribute 1/24.

Combusken moved from NU to PU
Trevenant moved from NU to PU
Sableye moved from UU to RU
Quagsire moved from NU to PU
Musharna moved from NU to PU
Klefki moved from OU to UU
Dugtrio moved from BL2 to OU

Note: I'm not even bothering checking BLs. If someone wants to edit this post to reflect BL placement, feel free.

Gastrodon moved from Doubles UU to Doubles OU
Arcanine moved from Doubles UU to Doubles OU
Dragonite moved from Doubles OU to Doubles UU
Gyarados moved from Doubles OU to Doubles UU
Hitmontop moved from Doubles UU to Doubles OU
Mawile-Mega moved from Doubles OU to Doubles UU
Landorus moved from Doubles OU to Doubles UU
Raichu moved from Doubles UU to Doubles OU
Gyarados-Mega moved from Doubles OU to Doubles UU

Doubles NU
Doubles NU is an unofficial metagame that's apparently so unpopular there's not even enough interest to support a challenge-only format. Still, it's conceivable that someone will want to play it, and that person should have an unofficial banlist to refer to. So...